The present invention relates to a foamable silicone-containing composition suitable for the treatment of a fabric material or, in particular, woven cloth.
It is well known that woven cloths and other fabric materials can be imparted with waterproofness or water-repellency by the coating treatment with certain agents such as various kinds of synthetic resins for fabric treatment, e.g. ethyleneurea resins, methylolmelamine resins and the like, paraffins, urethane rubbers, acrylic rubbers and the like. Although such a method of waterproofing or water-repellent treatment is well established in the art and widely practiced, conventional methods of such a treatment have a problem that the finished fabric material has a very hard touch in addition to the insufficient effects of waterproofness or water repellency. Therefore, it has been eagerly desired to develop a waterproofing or water repellent agent capable of imparting a treated fabric material with softer touch exhibited even at low temperatures with an object to use the treated fabric material for clothing.
On the other hand, clothes made of a fabric material treated with a conventional fabric-treatment agent as mentioned above are defective also in respect of their poor air and moisture permeability so that wearers of such clothes as an outerwear in summer weather or for labor works or sports always feel very uncomfortable due to the stuffiness as a result of greatly suppressed dissipation of the sweat or body heat.
There is a disclosure of a method for the preparation of a waterproof cloth, for example, in Japanese Patent Publication No. 42-1794 according to which a woven cloth is coated with a solution containing a curable silicone rubber terminated at both molecular chain ends with silanolic hydroxy groups as the main ingredient followed by a heat treatment. Alternatively, Japanese Patent Publication No. 42-15597 teaches a method for the preparation of a waterproof cloth according to which a woven cloth is coated with a solution containing a curable silicone rubber and an acrylic or urethane rubber as the main ingredients followed by a heat treatment. These methods of treatment with a solution containing a silicone rubber are indeed effective in imparting the treated cloth with soft or slippery touch but the problem of the poor permeability of air and moisture remains unsolved.